Stoic
by Eternity's Voice
Summary: Meet Scott: overprotective, stony, a stick in the mud. Ever wonder why? His entire life, there was someone in his head, hurting him. Scott traded his eyes for freedom, but deals with the "Devil" never come to any good, and He never keeps his word.
1. Childhood Terrors

Disclaimer, I do not own X-Men Evolution...yet. Marvel, there is no use resisting. Your property will soon belong to me.  
  
Stoic by Eternity's Voice  
  
When I was little, I was scared the monster was going to eat me. Every night my father stormed into my room, demanding the whereabouts of the fiend. Every night I pointed to my closet door. Dad tiptoed up to it, hefting my waffle-ball bat in his burly arms. With a practiced motion, he swung wide that door and flicked the light on, revealing only a few strewn shirts and shoes surrounded by legions of neatly hung clothing.  
  
"No monsters, Scott," Dad beamed "unless you count Mr. Cookie Monster." The stuffed toy flew neatly into my outstretched arms. Of course it did, Dad was the best flier in the whole world.  
  
I always smiled at that. I had to, had to look relieved and happy. Dad had to think that the monster was gone.  
  
He never understood. I wasn't some baby afraid of the dark. The monster was real and I needed to tell him where He was, but he clamped my jaw every time I tried. So I tried to show my father where He was hiding. I didn't point to the door meaning what was in the closet, but to what was on the door. I pointed to the mirror, to the monster that I saw in it. Every night I pointed to me.  
  
I was afraid He was going to eat me alive, from the inside out.  
  
It is those childhood terrors that stay with us the longest.  
  
He laughed when my parents died. I have to wonder if He didn't cause the plane to malfunction. Dad was the best pilot, how else could it have happened?  
  
He laughed when I lost Alex.  
  
He was always there, degrading and mocking every second. The monster, He seemed content to do just that. Still, some part of me knew He was only playing with me, that He could destroy me without a thought. I was desperate to get Him out of me.  
  
Short, I know. I write that way. Oh well. It would be nice if someone would review. I Love it, hate it with a passion, think it would be cool if you did this, etc.  
  
Yes, it's a little unclear. I break chapters where I think the section should end. 


	2. The Deal

One night I lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. He had been quiet for almost a day, never a good sign. It meant I was in for something, and I frantically tried to cover every angle. 'Tim and Kara love me.I don't give what the kids at school think about me.what happened to my family wasn't my.'  
  
He laughed. It was a dark sound, the one the movies tried to duplicate. Low and quiet, it latched to my spine, paralyzing me.  
  
'Scott, you know well as I that your parents' death wasn't your fault. Alex, on the other hand...'  
  
I closed my eyes, pretended to be asleep. He didn't really care what I thought inwardly. His goal was to make me react for real: throw something, yell at Him, anything. I gave Him nothing. It aggravated Him beyond Hell, but I didn't allow myself the satisfaction of admitting it. He went on and my heart bled, but I gave no sign.  
  
After a time, he sighed, if it were possible for a mental voice to do that. His tone changed to something I had never heard before and I couldn't help but listen.  
  
'.grown tired of you, Scott. Perhaps if I was more patient, more able to wait for things to get interesting, I would stay. I'm not though...patient. Scott. Normally, this would be the part where you die an excruciatingly painful death. However, this is hardly a normal situation you've put me in. Typically, by now the child gives in, takes my.suggestions for his own. If he isn't warped enough, I kill him and start over.  
  
He paused, then came back again, without the calmness he normally had. It was replaced with rage.  
  
'That should be your fate, but you defied me. Me! Do you now how rare that is, for the amount of time I've invested in you? It's not rare, it's nonexistent! Any normal human should be irreparably twisted. You had to be different, a freak. You and your untouchable morals, your sense of responsibility for the weakling sickens me. How did I manage to choose the one modern Stoic?  
  
'It would be pleasure beyond words to kill you the way I want, but that isn't enough, not for me.  
  
He took on the excited sound of a kindergartener talking about the presents he wanted for Christmas.  
  
"Just killing you is so sterile, painless. I want you lying before me, every bone broken. You'll heal, but all wrong, like a crystal goblet shattered into a thousand pieces, glued back together by a toddler. I'll force you to break yourself again to set everything right so I make it wrong again.  
  
The familiar voice -sophisticated and faintly cruel, with an accent I couldn't place- came back.  
  
'What I want, I can't have. Unfair, I know. I thought for a while, what would be the next best thing? It wasn't very hard to figure out. The future, your future, is a wondrous place. There is going to be so much you'll want to see, but you never will. Give me your eyes and I'll never touch you or yours again, just watch the show. Don't, and I'll burst your heart." 


	3. The Catch

When He offered the exchange, I couldn't accept quickly enough. It wasn't an offer, exactly, but that hardly mattered. I would have given up my voice, sight, and hearing to get Him out of me. Going blind was nothing.  
  
I said yes, and then realized this was my last chance to see. Luckily, I knew exactly what I wanted to be my last sight. I opened my eyes and looked up at my ceiling.  
  
The constellations were lovingly painted there. Tim had done it as a "Welcome our home, we want it to be yours too" gesture. Silvery animals and gods posed over their namesake star patterns. A warrior ran from some scorpion creature and a dragon stretched, up there. Orion stood like Batman in the first TV show: arms akimbo, proudly bringing attention to his belt like it held the answer to the meaning of life. It was beautiful. I smiled as I felt His oppression lift away. My eyes fixed on the stylized North Star as my sight started to go red. When I was blind, the Guiding Star would still be there and in the real sky. It would still light my way, even when I couldn't see it anymore.  
  
I didn't notice it at first, with my vision a bright crimson. The paint of the star darkened, began to bubble and smoke. The ceiling warped like some great heat was being applied. I sat up to get a closer look, and it was true. The only warning was a warm feeling before heat shot out of my eyes. The power slammed me down, and then blew a hole through my foster parents' roof. I hit the floor hard, but the falling debris was what knocked me out.  
  
Sirens woke me. My head felt like a mountain had fallen on it. The light shining through my eyelids was so painful, I cringed at the thought of opening my eyes. I groaned, tried to rub my head, and found I couldn't. It wasn't that my arms were strapped down to something, but that I couldn't lift one without feeling like someone was hacking at me with a meat cleaver. I considered dealing with the head-splitting pain to lift my eyelids and see what was going on. The memory kicked in and I abandoned the plan.  
  
'Damn Him! 'Give me your eyes'.the bastard didn't take them away, He made them his!'  
  
I thought I heard His laugh, but it was far off, like He was chuckling at me through a foot of observation glass. It faded away and I was left to my silent curses. At least I never had to deal with Him again, just His going away present.  
  
"Some consolation."  
  
"Oh, thank God. Scott, honey, we're in an ambulance. The hospital is close. It will be okay."  
  
'I hope you're right about that, Kara. I want to be wrong. From what I can tell, it will never be okay.' 


	4. Life

Stoic by Eternity's Voice  
  
.  
  
***  
  
"No."  
  
"Mr. Summers, you may have a concussion. We need to take a look at your eyes. I know it will hurt to open them, but it is necessary."  
  
"No."  
  
"We've dimmed the lights."  
  
"No."  
  
"Just drop the subject, Mr. Kramsh. He won't go blind in the next five minutes if he can see his eyelids with such little light shining through them. Help me with something important, like that piece of wood impaling his right leg."  
  
It was strange how I could be in such pain -hanging onto my life by a thread, really- and still concentrate on keeping my eyes from being opened. Later, cloth and pads of some cool liquid were placed over them.  
  
"This is just some bandages and ointment to bring down the swelling Scott. You should be able to open your eyes without any problems tomorrow morning. Goodnight."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
The doctor left, leaving the door open only a crack behind her. Outside, I overheard the assistant, Kramsh, speaking.  
  
"I spoke with the anesthesiologist. The drugs we gave him work just fine. There's no reason why he shouldn't have fallen unconscious immediately and stayed that way all night and quite a bit of the morning."  
  
"Mr. Summers did seem desperate to stay awake. He has a tremendous amount of will for such a young man. I suppose it does not matter that he didn't fall asleep, but that he will be fine and come out of this like nothing ever happened. Physically, anyway."  
  
They walked out of my hearing range and I relaxed, letting the exhaustion take me.  
  
.  
  
The next morning, I fought tooth and nail -literally- to keep the doctors from checking my eyes. They decided it wasn't worth prying them open. I agreed. It wasn't worth their lives to see if my pupils were dilated or some other insignificant thing. Even then, it would be assuming I still had eyes. Lying in the hospital bed, I wondered why I had been so stupid. Anything that felt so gleeful at the thought of my pain wouldn't walk away without a serious catch.  
  
Later, with closed eyes, I listened to the Story: a gas explosion. That was it. Somehow radon or some other gas collected in the attic, got trapped, and then blew up. It left me both a little guilty and relieved that I wasn't suspected. Kids like me couldn't afford to be labeled as destructive and dangerous, but it was my fault. In either case, that was the good news.  
  
Bad news: my foster parents couldn't keep me. It was some combination of insurance and being unfit. I thought the unfit parent issue held more weight. An explosion going off, injuring your foster child within an inch of his life, would probably put you on the wrong foot with whoever was in charge of Fostering regulations. It really didn't matter why. It mattered that I was being sent back.  
  
I didn't want to go back to the orphanage. It was nice and a good place, humanitarian and philanthropic. It looked good on your tax return to donate to the orphanage and it gave poor unfortunates a home. Despite all that, you could never forget what you were: an orphan. You were one of those poor unfortunates.  
  
Little kids, they clung to any older person they could find. It wasn't always a literal thing; some wouldn't touch or be touched. I let those kick at me, scream. Or we had staring contests. I was the big, responsible one because they needed me to be.  
  
In truth, I needed to kick and scream, get hugs and understanding gazes that lasted for hours. My family -my life- was dead. Why did I have to be the adult? Acting like the father, the big brother, reminded me of their death every day.  
  
In foster, you could begin to forget -never all of it, but some. In the orphanage, I would always be an orphan.  
  
.  
  
My drive to get better was gone. The longer I stayed in the hospital, the longer I stayed away from the orphanage. I could stay near Tim and Kara, maybe give them time to convince the government they made good parents. There was one problem with stopping concentrating on healing, however. I began to feel pain again, all too well. I was kept on painkillers for a week, but they didn't help. The only thing that lessened the hurt was to dig around my mind for Him and find nothing.  
  
.  
  
"Scott?"  
  
"Doctor Mirna?"  
  
"There's someone here to see you."  
  
My heart leapt for joy, and perhaps I would have to, if I could move my legs.  
  
"My parents?" I asked excitedly.  
  
"I'm sorry Scott, but Mr. and Mrs. Ivern still aren't allowed to see you. Maybe it would be best if you went back to calling them by name, it doesn't look good."  
  
"Oh." My eyes started to tear, the moisture sucked up by the bandages over my eyes.  
  
"May I come in Mr. Summers?" a strong male voice asked.  
  
"Yeah, sure."  
  
A few seconds later he continued, "I have a proposition for you, Scott." It startled me to hear him next to me. I had heard no footsteps.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"I know you don't have a strong desire to return to being a ward of the state. In fact, if I may be so bold, you seem to be delaying your return at all costs. I do have a solution that would benefit both of us, however."  
  
"Which is?"  
  
"I'm offering to become your legal guardian. If Tim Ivern can make the courts believe he and his wife are fit to take care you, I will give you up at once. If he cannot, which I am sorry to may be the case, I will be willing to raise you, let you visit them as often as you wish. In either case, you will stay out of the orphanage."  
  
"Yes."  
  
He laughed. "Don't be so quick to agree Scott, you don't even know who I am yet. Let me introduce myself. I am Professor Charles Xavier."  
  
"So if I agree, you'll be my teacher?"  
  
Again his chuckle filled the air. It was deep and sounded wise. "You are quite right, Mr. Summers, but not in the way you think. There are more things to teach than Mathematics and History."  
  
"What sort of things?"  
  
*The sort of things that people like us do, my boy.* I was so surprised I nearly forgot myself and opened my eyes. My hands clenched the arms of my wheelchair. Was this man -was it even a man- like Him, a presence in my mind? Was it Him?  
  
*You've had experience with telepaths before?*  
  
'Telepaths?'  
  
*Yes, I'm a telekinetic, a mutant. I won't pry into your thoughts, but it is obvious that you've been victimized by one with fewer reservations about hurting people than I do. Why, I have no idea, but I would help you with that as well.*  
  
'Why?'  
  
*Because that is what's right to do. I feel like a father to you, Scott. Like me, you've been given a great gift, though you may consider it a curse. I certainly did when I started to hear others' thoughts. I know about your eyes, what they can do. I may be able to help you control that power; to turn it off if it is possible to do so. I may be able to help you see again.*  
  
When the Professor offered to foster, possibly adopt me, it was going to parole from death row. When he said he might, just might, let me see again, it was from Hell to Heaven. When I agreed to go under Xavier's wing, he patted my shoulder, mentally putting into it all the feeling of a loving hug. I held his hand and then it didn't feel like Heaven anymore.  
  
It was better.  
  
It felt like Life.  
  
.  
  
.  
  
----------  
  
Confession time: The reason why the first chapters were so short is because they were one prologue at first, but I split it up to give me brainstorm time for the rest of the story. Oh, and to drive anyone crazy enough to read my work even more insane. The good news is that the prologue is complete now and the real story may begin. (Yeah, I'm real thrilled there). These chapters are bound to be longer, and include other characters. Jean, Rogue, killer Teletubbies, I've got it covered. Kidding, I would never subject fellow human beings to the horrors of Toddler World. It is my duty to keep my fiction from crossing over into NC- 02.  
  
BYE, and Thank You for Reading. 


	5. Believe for Me

Thank you. I really didn't want to commit infanticide...on the fic, I mean. It's my first fic, my baby. It's also very developmentally slow compared to my other stories, which are leaping ahead miles at a time. Let's fix that, shall we? On with the story!  
  
***  
  
Stoic by Eternity's Voice  
  
***  
  
"Professor?"  
  
"I'm here, Scott. Be careful, and remember that step." I grinned ruefully, thinking about the numerous times he hadn't remembered "the step." Why there was a step going from the kitchen to the hall I had no idea, but it was damned annoying for a person who couldn't see. How the wheelchair bound professor got around it, I didn't know.  
  
Carefully, I stepped up into the kitchen and made his way through it to the living room. I stopped a few feet from the collection of couches and chairs...I hoped. I was always misjudging my surroundings and crashing into things. Xavier promised none of the things that had shattered had been valuable, but I knew better. "You wanted to talk to me, Professor?"  
  
"Yes, Scott. Come in and sit down."  
  
I began my arduous trek again. My legs were still a little shaky from disuse and I wobbled. A small voice gasped and I froze. "Who's there?" I demanded.  
  
Xavier chuckled lightly. "Sit down, my boy. Your legs won't last much longer. I take a certain pride in being the only person in a wheel chair in this residence. It would be a blow to my self-worth if you were forced to use one again because of a simple thing like a fall."  
  
I managed to drop into a couch, and opened my mouth to speak, but the Professor beat me to it.  
  
"I would like to introduce you to someone, Scott. The person who startled you is Miss Jean Grey. Jean, this is Scott Summers, my foster son."  
  
"Nice to meet you." The girl sounded very shy. She also seemed troubled, as if she had a lot on her mind. Eventually, she mumbled. "He sounds very scary. I'm sorry, but I'm glad the demon wasn't in me."  
  
Xavier let out an exasperated sigh. "I thought we had been through this, Scott."  
  
I hung my head and the man continued. "There was no demon, just a rogue telepath. Mind mutants are quite common, much more than demons, I can assure you." There was a hint of amusement in his voice as he said that, but it vanished shortly.  
  
"I wish I could show the havoc this man or woman placed in your mind. I wish I could wave my hand and fix it, but as long as you believe it was demonic, I can't help you.  
  
"I can't explain to you why, exactly, but let me try. There are changes in your brain, connections that shouldn't be there. They are linked into thoughts like demon and damned and grow stronger every time you think of such things. They grow weaker the longer you go without acknowledging it. That is why the mutant was desperate that you fight or flee from it. When you ignored it, the ties grew weaker and it had to struggle to reach you. If you could focus on something else for a week, it would all go away and this telepath could never touch you again."  
  
I stifled a sigh. To forget the terror of my life since before I could remember...it was infinitely easier said than done. "I'll try."  
  
The professor's voice grew softer. "That's all I could ask for. I'm sorry to pull you into this, Jean. I hope you understand how important it was for me to talk to Scott."  
  
"It's all right, I didn't mind. You'll probably have to have a talk with me too."  
  
I drew my eyebrows together, the action hidden by my thick blindfold. What did that mean?  
  
"Scott, Jean will be staying here. She is like us, like me specifically. A telepath."  
  
"Is she..."  
  
The girl answered the question I had hesitated to ask. "My parents are still alive...sorry."  
  
I tilted my head towards the girl. I could pinpoint her now that she spoke loud enough. "Don't be," I said forcefully. "I'm glad I didn't ask that out loud."  
  
The professor ended the following silence. "If you two will excuse me, there is something that needs my attention." The handicapped mutant rolled away to some part of the mansion.  
  
I sank into the couch cushions. Why had the professor left so abruptly? He had never left me alone before. Well...if I concentrated, I could hear the faint sound a person breathing. I wasn't alone, but the girl was a stranger. Suddenly, her voice filled the quiet. "Scott?" Why did she sound frightened?  
  
"What?"  
  
"Please don't stop talking. I don't want to slip in again."  
  
"What do you mean, Jean?"  
  
There was a soft sound like a whisper, or a sob. "The inside world, in my mind." She grew quiet.  
  
"Miss Grey?"  
  
She gasped at her name. "I was there again. She was there too."  
  
"She?" I was getting confused. It would be so helpful if I could see, but I had to go by sound.  
  
"The firebird. She...she calls to me. I'm sorry, this must sound so strange."  
  
I laughed, "I'm the one who thinks he was possessed by a demon. Just talk. What is the inside world? Who is this firebird and why are you afraid of her?"  
  
"Maybe I should start at the beginning. My best friend Shelly and I were hiking in the woods. I don't remember what happened, I've tried, but it's not there. Afterwards, when I woke up, there was blood. It was all over, on the ground and on the trees. It was on me. It was Shelly's. I watched her, waiting for her to get up, but it never happened. I began to cry and I just wanted the world to go away. The world was just lonely trees, blood, and a dead girl. What reason was there to stay? There was a voice, from inside, that told me to come. She said She would make everything right. I believed Her. I was an idiot.  
  
"The firebird never made it right, She made it wrong. She said things. It made me feel angry and I wanted to do something...bad. I couldn't leave, though. The firebird, She said I wasn't angry enough and wouldn't let me go. I would run, but I just ended up in the same place. It was beautiful, but dead and burnt.  
  
"Then the professor came and saved me, took me out of my coma. He says that She is a figment of my imagination, something I just made up to cope. I can't believe that yet. At least you can blame your monster on an outside source. How can I believe that thing came out of me?"  
  
I sat still, and then began to speak. "The same way I can believe my demon was a cruel psychic. I can't, but you can. I'll believe She was just something your mind dreamed up without your permission. You believe that He was a fake. We'll just keep on telling each other that and maybe one day we'll believe it ourselves. Do you like smores?"  
  
"What?"  
  
I laughed. "I know the professor has chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers, but I can't make smores anymore. Will you make some for me?"  
  
She said softly, "Will you believe for me?"  
  
I sighed. "Jean, speak up. I can't see your lips move and I can barely hear you."  
  
"Will you believe for me?"  
  
"That's better. Yes, I will. Will you believe for me?"  
  
"Yes. Where are the marshmallows?"  
  
***  
  
Thank you for reviewing. 


	6. Lying Lenses

WARNING!! READ THIS FIRST! Okay, this is the sixth chapter, literally. I had a writer's strike posted up as the fifth chapter, but that is a real chapter called "Believe for Me" now. If for some reason you have read this fic before I made the change and haven't read that chapter, go back now. PLEASE, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!  
  
***  
  
Stoic by Eternity's Voice  
  
***  
  
I opened his eyes. My world was a multitude of red, red, and red. I hardly cared. Nothing, absolutely nothing had blown up.  
  
I walked around the garden, my steps sure for the first time in months. It was a relief to just walk and not worry about tripping or falling. I focused on a rose bush. The blooms were perfect. They were a lovely crimson, but the stems were a blackish color I wasn't sure I could stand. Turning my head this way and that, I saw that most of the garden was covered in that sickly shade. I frowned. I didn't like the way the strange ruby lenses distorted my sense of color.  
  
Despite that, I still didn't want to blink. My eyes had been closed for so long; I wished they could stay open forever. I walked along the paths, picking some of every plant with a bit of red, even pink, in it. I could see the color, truly. It didn't lie to me. I wanted to see like everybody else did, but that would probably never happen. Seeing red as red would probably be the closest I could get.  
  
.  
  
I stayed in the garden for hours. The daffodils were vivid orange and normally blue flowers were a delicate violet. The water at the fountain swayed and eddied with pink tinted water. I would never be able to see it all, but I could try. I had never thought about what could be seen before the accident. But now, every blade of the horridly colored grass was important. I had quite forgotten the professor and Jean, but they had left me alone to have some lesson on the girl's telepathic ability.  
  
Suddenly, I realized that I could see the only two people in my life now, instead of placing some vague picture of them in my imagination. I knew Xavier was in a wheelchair, preferred suits or comfortable sweaters, and had gentle hands. I didn't know what the professor liked for colors. I sincerely hoped it wasn't green.  
  
I wondered about Xavier's hair. Perhaps it was long and in a ponytail or something strange like that. Jean had joked about its length once or twice. 'Jean...what about her? What does she look like?' It had to be beautiful. She deserved to be beautiful.  
  
'Professor?' I thought, summoning up a faint mental picture of having a conversation with the man. It was a sort of cue that we had worked out to let the professor know it was okay to enter my thoughts. Such a signal was important in a house with two mind readers.  
  
*I am in the library, Scott.*  
  
I smiled faintly as I got up. It had been a long standing mystery as to what was written in those walls of books. I wasn't the most avid reader, but curiosity ran me over from time to time. It wasn't likely I would read any of the professor's texts though. They were probably all non-fiction or those books my teachers had called classics. Those were so long and dull, it was no wonder that the authors were all dead. The wonder was that the students forced to read them didn't keel over from boredom themselves.  
  
I laughed as he remembered my five minute attempt to navigate Moby Dick. I had dreamt of wheelbarrows for the next three nights and had never figured out where the garden tool fit into the plot of a sailing story. Not that it mattered anymore that I never finished the monstrous novel. I was in New York, and I was obviously no longer attending the Missouri school that had assigned it for summer reading.  
  
I entered the library. The first thing I saw was my foster father's hairless head. Despite an enormous effort, I still burst out laughing.  
  
Xavier wasn't bothered at all and chuckled a little too. "I suppose it was too good to last. I enjoyed you thinking of me with a full head of hair. Oh well. That's quite a bouquet you have there. Very monochromatic. I assume red is your favorite color?"  
  
I looked down at the collection in my hands. Even without the lenses, it was startlingly red. "Green was my favorite color. I...I just wanted to see them for real."  
  
The professor smiled, understanding. "One day, you'll see all colors, Scott, perfectly. It will just take work and time. Until then, try to be careful with that visor."  
  
"I kind of feel like Gordi from Star Trek."  
  
"Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind," he laughed. "Just enjoy your sight, Scott. Jean was in the front parlor last I noticed."  
  
I turned to leave. "Thank you."  
  
A bur of motion caught my eyes and I turned back towards the professor. It felt good to not be forced to speak to communicate and to see the occasional hand signal.  
  
"Scott," the professor asked after he had gotten the my attention, "I must ask you something. How many more young people living here could you stand?"  
  
I started at the question. There would be more kids? I understood why Jean was there, because of her telepathic powers, but more? After living in an orphanage for years, I loved nothing more than a Small family. I clung to the idea. Other kids would feel like an invasion fleet come to destroy my life. I opened my mouth to flatly refuse him, but I made the mistake of looking in the professor's eyes. There was a tear jerking hope there, like a little boy's in front of the pet shop window where the baby puppies played. I sighed, "A few, but just a few."  
  
"Don't worry, Scott. I don't want more than two children per adult. There will be two older people staying here as well. I hope you won't mind."  
  
I didn't mind adults if it meant the new kids wouldn't take the professor away from me. Jean was going home for the fourth of July anyway. If the new kids had parents, then I still would have the holidays for myself.  
  
"I still get my own room, right?"  
  
"Oh, definitely."  
  
I decided I very much liked the professor's smile.  
  
.  
  
I went off to find Jean. Even though I could see, it was a little hard to find my way through the mansion I had traveled by touch for so long. I would miss turns or walk too far. It was very beautiful and regal though and I didn't mind exploring a little more than I had meant to. Eventually, I stumbled across the kitchen entrance, literally. I forgot the step and tripped up into the room. I was never going to memorize that I had to step up there.  
  
"Jean?"  
  
"I'm here, Scott." Her voice sounded excited. I was excited. I started to walk through into the living room but stopped. I fished around in the cupboards for a vase and put the flowers in it. I went in and set the flowers on the glass table in the center of the room. I looked up and one of those movie moments where the whole world shifts to focus on one thing happened. It focused on Jean. 'Wow.'  
  
We sat and laughed and talked. Our conversation was about stupid things like the films she was going to make me see now that I could, in fact, see. Beautiful words kept revolving in my head and I sincerely hoped her shields had grown strong enough to block it out. A faint smell wafted in and our stomachs growled on cue. As we got up for dinner, I followed behind her. She absently shook her hair behind her shoulders and I blinked.  
  
Jean's hair was red. I was seeing her as she really was, beautiful. It was a wonderful feeling to know that the lenses didn't lie about that.  
  
***  
  
Yow, that came out cute. Oh well, that's adolescent puppy love for you. At least he liked her before he could see. Kudos for Scott. 


	7. Not Expendable

Whoa, what happened to me updating this thing frequently?  One word: Romy.  Oh well, I'm writing for me, not the Romyans, not even y'all (weird, I know).  So here's some new stuff for here.  

***

Stoic by Eternity's Voice

***

            Touch a button, stuff goes boom.  Why did that make feel like a walking nuclear weapon?  The big bio-hazard X over my chest didn't exactly relieve the thought.  A whirring machine came out of a wall, aiming some sort of oversized gun at me.  It made some sounds that said it was preparing to fire, and I pressed a button at my temple.  The visor made a clicking noise.  I nuked it.  I looked around, ready, but the machine had been the last one. 

             "Excellent work, Scott, though I believe I must add more funds to the budget for training equipment."  Xavier's amused voice spoke to me from speakers hidden somewhere in the vast underground room.  Though it would have been simpler for him to use telepathy, we had a tacit understanding about that:  Talk in my head and I think the D-word.  Not that thoughts about my Demon didn't invade my mind every four minutes, but thinking about it on purpose was only asking for trouble.

            I looked around the aptly named Danger Room and started to walk to the door, swerving around enormous hunks of debris and shrapnel.  The huge training area was choked with it.  Bending stiffly, I plucked one of thousands of warped screws from the metal floor.  It was all my doing; the holocaust about me had come out of my own two eyes.  If I did this in the real world, there would be blood strewn about as well, gallons of it.  I didn't want my vision redder than it was.

            I studied the little crooked screw.  The distortion wasn't from heat, not any more.  I remembered the ceiling of my room darkening and curling, like a piece of paper when you put a flame under it.  Now there was only power behind my eyes.

            The old great power, greater responsibility line played in my head.  I didn't want to hear it.  I didn't ask for it, any of it.  Who would?  Who would ask to be an orphan, be responsible for his own brother's death, to have ruby death in his eyes; who would ask for whatever the Hell had happened in my mind for over ten years?  I didn't care if it had been a telepath or if Hell was exactly the right word for it; I just wanted to forget.  Every time I opened my eyes and saw red, I remembered.

            I stared down at the misshapen screw, a tiny example of the large-scale destruction I had caused.  In a way, I felt connected to it.  It had been just a small piece of a grand machine, not knowing its purpose or that of the machine.  I closed my hand around it.  Whatever had been done to me, there had been some reason for it.  Someone just didn't waste over a decade torturing a kid without some reason.  Why me, or what he was trying to accomplish, I didn't know.  Though now it didn't really matter.  Now I had been torn away from the machine, whole but warped.

The device that the screw had come from, a laser, lay shattered in pieces.  I wasn't so lucky; my monster was still around.  Out there somewhere -in Hell or maybe just Kentucky, there was someone planning something that I had been a part of.  The question was: had I been a replaceable part or would he come back for me?             

            When I walked out of the elevator onto the mansion's main level, the screw was in my jeans' pocket.  Minutes later, I lay on my bed, forcing my way through summer reading.  I really should have known better than to think I was done with schooling.  The Professor had originally mentioned home schooling, but now he was up to something that I wasn't sure I liked.  I was preparing for Bayville high's next year of school.  Jean already attended; she had been since that lost look in her eyes disappeared.  From what I heard, she had blended into the mix seamlessly.  Soccer star, honors classes, dozens of new friends; she just fit -something I doubted I could ever do.  

            I put down the heavy book -unfortunately Moby Dick- and breathed dejectedly.  My track record wasn't all that good.  With a lack a parents, a former sibling, a lifetime of mental rape, and the ability to kill anyone I had a staring contest with -no, I didn't think I would ever get that lucky.  Jean had gone from lethal experience to coma to most popular girl in school without a hitch.  With my luck, I'd still be in the coma.  I hefted the whale of a tale of a Whale back up again and opened it up.  I started reading about the uses of whale blubber.

            Half an hour and about four pages later, a knock on my door saved me from the White Whale.  "Scott?  The Professor has some guests.  Dinner's ready, if you would join us."  Jean's words confused me slightly.  It couldn't be dinner time already.  My eyes checked the alarm clock and blinked.  "All right," I grumbled, "make that two and a half hours and four pages."  I schlepped off my wrinkled shirt and pulled on a sweater.  It was green, but Kara had bought it for me last winter, just before the accident.  Digging, a finger under my collar, I tugged it away from my neck.  I hadn't really been able to go shopping for clothes, so most of my things were for winter.  At least Xavier kept the thermostat down.

            I smiled, knowing the reason why.  The Professor wore a lot of sweaters and thick clothing too.  Though he didn't exert himself physically much, there were times when he could overheat himself.  Xavier was of the school that thought bald men should not sweat rivers down their bare heads.   

            In the front hall, a wild looking man leaned against the wall, smoking a cigar while a beautiful woman irritably told him to stop, several times.  They both paused when I came down the stairs.  The pair looked at me, a little pity mixed in with whatever emotions they were feeling.  I noticed the woman's neatness and her regal posture.  The man moved efficiently, like a soldier; even a kid could see that.  They had control, and they fought hard to keep it.  I had no control and they knew it, so they pitied me.  That was something I just didn't want to deal with.  Somehow, my legs got moving on the stairwell again.  I said hello and blew past them towards the dining room.  

            Then the cigar smoke found its way into my lungs and I coughed uncontrollably.  I never had a good tolerance for stuff like that.  At the edge of my vision, I saw the man put out his cigar by rubbing the burning part into his palm.  I winced and walked through the kitchen into the dining room.  For once, I remembered that damn step.  After a bit of deductive reasoning, I figured they were the people Xavier wanted to hire for watching the Incoming.  I called the threat of Xavier's new kids that: Incoming.  They seemed like this missile shooting straight towards the first happy life I had ever known.  

            It wasn't hard to tell they were both mutants, or that the man was trying to protect me -from tobacco smoke of all things.  I wasn't a baby; I didn't want pity.  As they followed behind, I didn't look back.

            Dinner was quiet.  If I ever had wanted to know about the torture that was a job interview, I just had to look at the two mutants' faces.  No one said a word, though.  I knew they were talking telepathically; the man tended to use gestures to talk.  Jean seemed intent on her dinner, but she had that expression on that said her mind was elsewhere.  That place wasn't deep in thought or daydreaming either; she was putting in her own two cents in a discussion I couldn't even hear.

            I ate quickly, just wanting to get out of there.  It was like being in a conversation, and then everyone around you suddenly started to speak in Chinese.  Not quite finished, I cleared my plate anyway.  I wandered off, not thinking of where I was going.  If I didn't have a place in mind, it seemed more likely that neither of the telepaths would find me.

            After a time, I found myself in the library.  The clock struck the time and I stared at it.  It was the second time that day a few hours had gone by in what felt like minutes.  I went to a shelf and pull out a book at random.  Moby Dick.  I frowned and replaced it, not liking the coincidence.

            "You should finish that book, Scott."

            I whirled around and saw the woman from dinner.  She leaned against the door frame, watching me.  She smiled, "It's rather important to your education; I should know."  I didn't know whether to dislike her or instantly fall in love.  

            The woman laughed, instantly looking younger, almost my age.  "Pick the love, Mr. Summers.  It would make things much more enjoyable."  She walked over and held out a hand.  "Emma."

            I didn't take the handshake.  Emma shrugged and replied for me, "Scott, but I know that already."

            I walked away.  "Nice to meet you, Ms. Emma, but I don't like people in my head.  Please stay out of it."

            "This from a boy who lives with two telepaths: one who can't control herself, and one who defined the word nosey?  You're too suspicious, Scott.  I only hear what you project loud and clear.  I'd never looked inside your mind."  The woman reached out towards my face, an eerily wistful look growing on hers.  "Though I want to.  You're so interesting.  Someone's been playing God in there," she smiled wickedly, "and successfully.  Look at it logically and there is only a few more changes to make before-"

            Emma snatched her hand away suddenly, as if she had been burned.  She stared at it wildly, and I did too.  Large, bulbous blisters formed on her skin.  It looked like she had been cooked to the bone.  The blonde glared at me -or rather, through me, and then disappeared.  I had just blinked, but she was gone.

            I blinked again, and I was outside the mansion's gates, griping the door handle of a limousine.  The tinted window was down and I looked in to see Emma.  For some odd reason, the first thing I noticed was that she was very scantily dressed, all white lingerie.  Her jacket and long skirt lay discarded on the floor by her feet.  Okay, perhaps it wasn't so odd for a guy to see that first, but under the circumstances there was something far more interesting about her.  She clutched her hand like before, but it was completely unburned.  Tears of pain rolled through her make-up.  For some uncontrollable reason, I smiled, and her eyes widened in fear.  My hand let go of the door all of its own, and the limo tore off into the night, leaving me alone in the middle of the road as a cold wind suddenly picked up.

            It grew stronger, and I shivered, glad for the sweater.  A shadow blotted the moon.  A woman dropped down from the sky as I stared.  The expression on her face was murderous.  It immediately softened when she noticed me.  "What are you doing out here on the road, Child?"

            Her dark, motherly face clouded with worry as I looked around, wondering that exact same question.  "I...I don't know.  I was in the library, and then..."  She stroked my hair softly, making me feel like a little kid.  The feeling was welcome.

            "Do you live with Xavier?" she asked and I nodded.  The woman gently put a hand on my shoulder and led me back home.  

            Jean opened the door and stared out at us.  "Scott?  Wha...what are you..."  Her gaze fixed on the white haired woman beside me and she switched questions.  "Who are you?"

            "Ororo Monroe," the woman replied and Jean's mouth popped open in disbelief.  

            "Ororo?  Bu..." she looked back inside the house, towards the dining room.  I looked at her, confused.  Jean never spoke like that.  She never stuttered or broke off mid-word.  Xavier wheeled into view and the girl stared blankly at him for a moment.  Then she asked slowly, "Professor?"

            He smiled at her, his eyes a little less sharp than usual.  Carefully, he said "Jean, you should go lie down.  I'll explain this to you when you feel better."  

She nodded and walked to the stairs.  She got about halfway before staggering.  The man from dinner caught her inches from the floor.  Unlike them, he seemed absolutely fine.  "Just point me to yer room, Red," he said softly.  He led her away up the stairs.

             "...Logan?"

             "Shush, kid.  Try not to think so hard.  If Chuck's right, that's what's makin' you feel bad.

            Ororo asked the Professor, "What has been going on here?"  

            Xavier looked at her, and smiled dully.  "Ororo Monroe, I presume?  We talked on the phone earlier, didn't we?"

            She nodded regally, like Emma had, but it fit better with the brown skinned woman.  "We were going to discuss a job opportunity over dinner.  Unfortunately, I was..." she shuddered and hugged herself, "detained."

            Very confused, I asked, "What happened, Professor?"

            He looked at me sadly.  "The woman here was an imposter, a telepath who specializes in deception.  Apparently, she is also a good druggist."  He shook his head gingerly and continued, "I have no idea who she is, though."

             "Emma, she said her name was Emma," I said.

            Xavier looked at me, startled.  "She talked with you."

            I replied, "I...I think so."  I described what had happened in the library, what I now thought had been a scene played out inside my head.  "And she stumbled back, holding her hand.  It was burned real bad, third degree.  She disappeared, and then I was out on the road, getting ready to get in her car.  She looked at me through the window, but kinda through or behind me, not at me for real.  I let go of the car door and she couldn't get out of there fast enough."

            The Professor leaned back in his chair thoughtfully.  "You said this Emma was talking about the changes in your head before she was...attacked?"  I nodded, and then a thought came to me.  He saw the fright, and said softly, "Scott, please get some rest.  You've had a trying night."  He wheeled away and Ororo followed.  They were engaged in a silent conversation, again pointedly leaving me out.  

            I stared after him, watching his receding bald head.  'Get some rest' wasn't what I needed to hear.  Emma had been attacked when she tried to tell me about what was going on in my head.  Someone hadn't wanted her to, and I knew exactly who: the monster who had lived in my head.  I shivered, despite the sweater.  That meant my Demon was still watching, that he wasn't done with me.

            I went up to my room, but couldn't sleep.  I finished Moby Dick around four-thirty in the morning.  Then I watched the sun rise out on the front porch.  I felt a lump in a jeans pocket and pulled out the screw.  It lay in my palm, useless, forever free of the monstrous machine it had been an unwilling part of.  "What I wouldn't give to be you," I whispered to the screw, then hurled it into the bushes where no one would ever find it.  Then I took off the visor because I couldn't cry with it on.  Later, someone comforted me in their arms.  I never knew who; I jut hoped it wasn't Him.           

***

Done, and we're getting angsty.  If you're only exposure to X-men is Evo or the movies, then you've got no clue who Emma Frost is, but if the shoe fits...

Note: Okay, I know this is nothing like the X-Men plot.  Because of that, it makes it harder for them to sue me.  Disclaimer: Marvel.  Short, sweet, not to the point.  I realize that my sequence of events is different, as in the plane crash didn't scramble the "off switch" of Scott's power in his brain.  For future reference, I know that Red's eyes are green, but since when has anyone been true to Evo: Jean anyway?            


End file.
